Northeast Conference ranked 28th out of 31 Division 1 conferences

Wagner and the rest of the NEC are ranked 28th out of the 31 Division I conferences. (Staten Island Advance file photo)

In some cases, if you want to know how a conference stacks up against others across the country, there's no need to have an advanced degree in calculus or statistics or to subscribe to all sorts of insider power-ratings Web sites.

In the case of the smaller conferences, just count the number of teams with records above the .500 mark and you'll be surprised how often that clearly indicates where they stand among the 31 Division I leagues in America.

For instance, there are currently just seven conferences among the 31 with three or fewer teams above .500 for the season.

The Big South (VMI, Radford, Liberty), Southern (Davidson, Citadel, Charleston), and Summit (North Dakota State, Oakland, IUPUI) all have three such teams.

The NEC (Robert Morris, Mt. St. Mary's) and Ivy (Cornell, Princeton) each have two.